The main opposition parties Musavat, People’s Front,
National Independence and several other groups had called for a
rally in Baku to demand political and economic reform. The
police said in a statement that 65 people were detained and 25
were later released.

Police cordoned off one of Baku’s main parks to prevent
demonstrators coming together and there was a greater-than-usual
security present throughout the center of the city.

Opponents of President Ilham Aliyev’s regime are
campaigning for greater democratic freedoms in the oil-rich
former Soviet republic. Protesters won’t be able to replicate
uprisings in the Middle East that toppled regimes in Egypt and
Tunisia, Aliyev said yesterday in state-run newspapers.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zulfugar Agayev in Baku via the Moscow news room at
zagayev@bloomberg.net